Britain To Keep Up Iraq Surveillance Flights: Defence Minister

WochitAug. 16, 2014. 04:56 AM EST

Defence Minister Michael Fallon said on Saturday that Britain is to keep up its surveillance flig...
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Defence Minister Michael Fallon said on Saturday that Britain is to keep up its surveillance flights over northern Iraq to try to stop more minority groups coming under jihadist attack. Fallon was speaking on a visit to Cyprus from which Britain has been making its aid and surveillance flights over Iraq out of its sovereign air base at Akrotiri on the south coast. Britain dropped more than a hundred tonnes of tents and water to Yazidi Kurds trapped in the Sinjar mountains of northwestern Iraq earlier this month by the advancing jihadists. According to a statement released after the meeting, Fallon said, "We are flying aircraft over Iraq so we all have a better understanding of where the next threat is coming from and whether there are other minority groups that face the kind of barbaric terrorism that we have seen." Britain deployed Tornado fighter jets to Akrotiri earlier this month for its Iraq surveillance flights.
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